It would take only about an hour to get to Puerto Vallarta
from Sayulita, so we took our time packing and exploring the town once more in
the morning before leaving. The town had a different feel in the morning; it wasn't as loud
and bustling as it had been the night before. It was almost like walking the
streets of New Orleans after a night of partying. Though, once we got down to
the centro area we found early birds eating their breakfast and heading out to
the beach. It was a windy day, so there wasn't too much activity on the water
aside from a few boats and paddle boarders. We walked around the whole town to
get a better idea of what it was like during the day, and then settled into a
busy commercialized restaurant for some breakfast. Actually, we hadn't had a real
breakfast up until this point the entire time we had been in Mexico. Eric
doesn't eat breakfast for one, and aside from that we always have the sense
that we need to get up and out as quickly as possible in order to get to the
next town before the sun goes down. This doesn't make sense really; if we just
ate breakfast instead of a long lunch we would be taking up just as much time.
In any event, our first Mexican American breakfast was fantastic!
Hippie father and daughter buying necklaces together (Bare feet and all)
A couple of dogs play in a nearby store. We watch for a while because the small Chihuahua reminds us of Kimmi (The behavior, anyway).
Bird of paradise in a palm tree?
After breakfast we needed to head back to our hotel to check
out on time. We were actually happy that we weren’t able to book another night
in Sayulita because we felt we had seen enough of the town now after our
morning walk, and the weather wasn’t great for lounging around the beach all
day anyway. After checking out we were loading up our bike when a family from
California (originally for the UK) who we spoke with the previous day
approached us. The couple had two small kids, with a boy who was enamored with
motorcycles. The previous day he asked his dad if they could wait around for us
to “take off” but we were just getting off of the bike at that point. He was
happy that they happened to be walking by our parking area when we were
actually taking off this time. We said our goodbyes while the boy watched
carefully exactly what we did while “taking off” (how nerve wracking), while
the young girl yelled “have a happy Christmas!” This was the first time Eric
and I had realized that it was only 3 days away from Christmas by this time.
What a strange feeling it was to be in Mexico on vacation instead of holiday
shopping 3 days before Christmas. But a good feeling at that!
The day before we wanted to drive through San Francisco,
Mexico, a small town just 10 minutes north of Sayulita. We would have made it
to Sayulita past dark if we made the stop so we didn’t feel like we had the
time. Originally I wanted to stay in San Francisco because they have a pretty
great hostel/bed and breakfast for 38 bucks a night. Unfortunately,
the hostel was booked and so were all the other semi cheap places in town so we
stayed in Sayulita instead. It turns out Sayulta is pretty expensive itself,
but had a bigger town to offer to make up for its prices. San Francisco is
cute, quaint, & beachy,
but small.
It has just one road to drive through to get to the beach. This would be a
great town to stop in for one night, but it would be a better day trip while
staying in Sayulita. So we drove through the one road-town to see the beach at the
end, took some pictures, and headed back out to the main road.
Our next stop would be Punta de Mita on the way to Puerto
Vallarta. I had read somewhere that Punta de Mita was Cancun’s Tulum. That is,
to go to Punta de Mita instead of Puerto Vallarta because it had a much more
relaxing and small town vibe than busy Puerto Vallarta. Well, the book was
right, I suppose; it just wasn’t right in the way I expected it to be. Upon
entering Punta de Mita, there was not much going on. The streets were dead, there were no people wondering about, and restaurants might as well have been closed
as far as I could tell. Once we pulled onto the main road where all the hotels
were, we realized that Punta de Mita is a resort only town made of one simple
street. There are touts everywhere hoping to sell something, and were more
aggressive than touts we’ve seen in the past as they walked in front of cars in order
to get them to stop before heading into their closed off resorts. It is
impossible to see what any of the resorts looked like due to this massive wall that divides two worlds; one of resorts and one of, well, Mexico. We saw a couple people
out and about walking around but I assume most people simply stay in their resorts
the entire time they are in town. Ill never understand why one would want to spend so much air fare to get to a place where they don't plan on leaving their hotel.
We got off the bike to ask how much a boat
would cost to get to Marieta Islands from Punta, but they couldn’t give us an
accurate price. Apparently the boat is a set price, and depending on how many
people are on the boat that day the price is divided per person. I read that it was cheaper to get to Murieta Islands from
Punta because the ride was only about 20 mins compared to Puerto Vallartas 1
hour ride. In the end, we decided it is probably not worth the 30 minute drive back
up to Punta de Mita to save money on a boat ride since we didn’t gain any
useful knowledge by asking around that day.
I was extremely happy we didn’t stay in Punta de Mita the
night before since we aren’t into resort style.. anything, actually. After
leaving Punta de Mita we headed to Puerto Vallarta. We had made a reservation
at a hotel the night before and planned to meet up with Ed, a guy we found on
ADVrider who offered to watch our bike for us while we fly back home. There
was only one hostel with a private room left by the time we went to book our
room the night before at 27 US per person, so we decided to book a semi resort
style hotel for 60 US instead that Eric found on hotels.com since it was about the same price (yes, I know I just contradicted myself). We checked into
our grand hotel room, freshened up, made ourselves a small drink that Eric
needed after a long wait getting into our hotel room in the hot sun, and headed
towards the pool for some fun in the sun before heading out to meet Ed. The hotel
had a total of 3 pools and a nice sitting area under cute little palapas on the
beach. We soaked up the sun until about 4, showered, and packed up to meet Ed.
Before meeting at Ed’s place we wanted to pick up a bike
cover at Walmart since the bike would be sitting in the sun and weather for about a month.
We couldn’t find a bike cover, so instead we bought a bed sheet to at least keep the
sun and bird droppings off of the bike. When walking back to our bike we saw
another couple with a 1200 BMW parked next to our bike. They were walking in as
we were walking out, so we were able to chat for a little while. They were from
France, and had been on the road for about 3 years now. We asked how long they
were planning to be in Mexico for and they said something like “eh, who knows,
we are just taking our time”. We thought this was great, and didn’t have much
to offer conversation wise to them as we were just starting our trip ourselves
and were planning on flying back home the next day. It is a sad day to run into
other bike companions and not be able to ride together due to our schedule. Oh
well, one day we will be traveling full time too.
We met at Ed’s a little later than planned, met Ed himself,
and put our bed sheet over the bike for storage. Eric had asked me in the store
if we should buy a full or twin sized bed sheet and I confirmed that we only
needed a twin. Eric argued that a full would be a better size but I held my
ground on the twin. Well, Eric ended up being right, as the twin barely covered
the top of the bike. We put together this ghetto arrangement before heading out
for drinks with Ed.
Ed gave a nice tour of centro PV and then took us to a beach
side eatery with tables under palapas. Here, both margaritas and beers were
only 1 USD so we all ordered a satisfying margarita and chatted for a while. As
it turns out, Ed had been on quite a few fascinating rides himself before
settling down in PV where he is now in real estate. We talked about rides,
bikes, and life over a few more margaritas and dinner before Ed was kind enough
to drop us off at our hotel. The rest of the night Eric and I sobered up on the
beach watching sky lanterns rise and then fall.
We were lucky enough to watch a sea turtle lay her eggs on the beach after dinner!
Bad picture of sky lanterns
